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No opening promos this week as the opening package for NWA-VA Action Zone airs and we go into our first of two matches of the night.
The Bounty Hunter & J-Sin Vs. Steve Harris & Big Tony
At first glance, I thought this match was going to completely bore me, but it didn't. It wasn't the best match possible, but I didn't feel bored during it at all. J-Sin and Harris start off the match and Harris proves he is the better, causing J-Sin to crawl back to Bounty Hunter, who won't tag him in. I kind of like the reluctant tag team element in some matches. It's no secret I'm not a big fan of tag team wrestling, but the little things make me appreciate it more. Harris and Sin do a typical "I can do it better than you stick" before Sin finally tags in Hunter, unwillingly of course! Action continues with Big Tony coming in. Eventually, Hunter tries to tag in Sinn, but Sinn jumps down to avoid it. Hurray for the little things in life. Moving on, they eventually back up Big Tony into the heel corner and taunt Harris to come in. Harris does and the ref stops him, causing a double team on Big Tony. We then enter the waning face segment of the match with Big Tony desperately needing to get the tag. A good spot occurred when J-Sinn bit the face of Big Tony, and when the ref admonished him; he grabbed him and argued with him with his leg choking Big Tony. Fun little spot to me. I liked the power moves that followed to Big Tony like the sternum blow. Big Tony is a jolly ol' big guy and cut off the air supply and you cut off most of the energy. Action continued even with the face comeback spiel, but I really enjoyed J-Sin playing a complete idiot for some reason. He crawled to the wrong corner at least twice in the match, and it just made the crowd heckle him more. Eventually, the heels get the chance to win, but they argue over who gets to pin and they end up losing via a roll-up. As the faces celebrate, the heels argue and push the ref around, and the ref, who was a wrestler I refuse to name, got the better of him. The ref in this match was extremely sub-par. He was slow for counts, slow for break-ups, sat around, and wore a freakin' bandana. He definitely pissed me off the most in this match, which wasn't that bad.
Winners: Steve Harris & Big Tony
Star Wrestler: J-Sin
I didn't feel like anyone in this match was completely horrid. Big Tony is still a little green, but has already got some routines down that seem to work for him. Steve Harris is a nice, generic face that got over with the local crowd. Bounty Hunter played a good tough guy, but I have to say that J-Sin really impressed me. When he first came out, I really wasn't looking forward to him in the ring, but he made it work. Without him, I doubt the feuding heels theme could have worked as well as his obvious ignorance made it work. If I was Bounty Hunter, I wouldn't want to work with an idiot who crawls to the wrong corner and then grabs my waist begging for mercy. The wrestling was all on the same level in this match, but the character that J-Sin played was beautiful and I loved it.
They then show an advertisement for the August 12, 2005 event that will have the "Kings of the Commonwealth" Tag Team Tournament in Mathews, Virginia.
We then see Rick O'Brien in a chair with Chris Dramin across from him as we go into the "Meet The Wrestler" segment. It was pretty good interview. They talked about the switch from the nickname "The Technical Revolution" to just "The Revolution." I am really looking forward to that gimmick in NWA-VA, which is mostly built upon old school. The feeling that I got was that Dramin was going to take old school style and shun it to hell with his new hybrid style. If that happens, we could get so many good matches. Dramin-Quinn, Dramin-Wayne, Dramin-Booth, Dramin-Frost, Dramin-Vaughn, etc. Now, yes, we have had some of these matches before, but with a theme in it? With Frost going old school with moves, and Dramin hitting interesting variations that catches him off guard; that sounds sweet to me. Of course, they talk about the whole Old School Empire and Scotty Blaze situation and I got what I expected from it. I do like that he admitted he was fool-hearted because it gets him over with the crowd a little more. People want to see character flaws. One reason Rey Mysterio is so over right now in WWE is because he supposedly has one flaw, which doesn't matter. He's human, and that's what makes it important. They then talk about his history with Grail and his ascension in the business which was as kayfabe as could be. The interview then finished up with a name association from people in NWA-VA to people in TNA, which I didn't really enjoy for a lot of reasons: Pure cliché; most of the wrestlers mentioned, the people watching have never heard of; and it didn't give much insight into the wrestler, like I thought the segment was supposed to. All in all, it was a pretty good interview, and I really enjoyed the laid back feel to it, though others didn't.
They then showed some more advertisements. NWA-VA will be in Hopewell, Virginia on the 23rd of July; Mathews, Virginia on the 12th of August; Orange County; and Virginia on the 20th of August. On a side note though, the Hopewell event has been cancelled for about the second time in a row. All right, enough of this. Time for the main event.
NWA-VA Junior Heavyweight Championship
Fatal Four-way Elimination Match
Grail (c) Vs. Sean Callaway Vs. Mike Vaughn Vs. Ultra Dragon
This was an interesting four-way to say the least. You had two underrated tweeners in Mike Vaughn and Sean Callaway, the debuting Ultra Dragon, and of course, Grail, who is obviously great. This match was a little hard to watch because of the four people in it which had the camera only focusing on two people at a time. Plus, the commentary was off because of this so some things that were mentioned, you never saw. Just a basic problem. As far as the match went, I thought the beginning was excellent. Grail and Vaughn have a huge feud going in NWA-VA that has been pretty enjoyable, so when Grail came out, Vaughn popped up and took it to him in a good fashion. Vaughn and Grail basically all out brawled out on the outside for the first half of the match. Callaway and Ultra Dragon go at it in the ring, but it's mostly just conflicting styles that don't mesh well so I wasn't digging it. I did like the transition from Grail-Vaughn/Callaway-Dragon to Grail-Dragon/Callaway-Vaughn. Callaway basically put a shot to the gut to Dragon, and Vaughn came in and hit a spinning neck breaker allowing Vaughn to attack Dragon and Callaway to go after the champ. Callaway and Vaughn have really good chemistry I always thought. I wouldn't mind seeing Vaughn/Callaway versus Booth/Wayne for the tag straps. In fact, I really want to see it. Problem is, Vaughn and Callaway need to pick an orientation first: heel or face. Even more, Callaway needs to get a gimmick. He's supposedly the "wrestling prodigy," but nothing he does in the ring shows it. Callaway is a good brawler and they need to build the gimmick around that. If I hear Rick O'Brien introduce him as "wrestling prodigy" one more time, and I don't see some two minute chain wrestling with Callaway coming out on top, I might just cry.
Action continues on and on. I'm really not digging Ultra Dragon in this match. He's the cliché cruiserweight indy wrestler. Flipping and doing practically nothing with meaning. At one point, Callaway launched him into the corner and dropped to the floor like you would see Triple H do. The indication is that he used so much power that the opponent should bounce off. Not Ultra Dragon because obviously one hundred and seventy pounds is enough to stop a two hundred pound man's momentum. Good logic. Anyway, One spot that popped out in my mind was Grail getting Dragon on the floor on the outside and popping off the apron with a flying elbow drop. Nice Foley reference, but to my surprise, the crowd didn't give two shits about. The crowd was really hot throughout the whole vent, but this match did not go over well for some reason.
Action continued until Vaughn was finally pinned by Dragon after being caught by surprise with a Tornado DDT. This was completely idiotic to me. Logic would have told me to have Vaughn and Grail make it to the end with their feud, or at least eliminate Dragon first since he is debuting. Obviously, no logic tonight. It seemed really anti-climatic to have Vaughn out this early, but hopefully, it's not the last of these two in the ring.
Grail and Dragon definitely do not have good chemistry. They are both small wrestlers, but I assume that Dragon thought that Grail would want to flip like he does too. He was dead wrong and it showed. Grail finally eliminates Dragon with the tombstone piledriver and then takes out Callaway with the Ripper crossface. I really dig Grail, but it seems to me that he doesn't really have his own finishers. It seems like he has borrowed these mainstream ones. Plus, I don't buy seeing the crossface and tombstone by one person. Sorry.
All in all, I enjoyed the match but some things bothered me. There were a lot of anti-climatic elements in the match. I enjoyed the way Vaughn lost as he was pissed about him not being able to put down Grail, bit the fact that he went out so early was dumb to me. Even more, the crowd actually started popping for the crossface, but Callway tapped out after about three seconds. A little suspense could have helped it a lot. Like I said, good match with minor mix-ups.
Winner: Grail
Star Wrestler: Mike Vaughn
Now, I really like Grail and I try and not give it to the obvious wrestler, so I got to tip my hat to Mike Vaughn. Sean Callaway almost won this too, but the fact that he tapped out so quickly in the end left such a bad taste in my mouth that I busted him down a peg. As far as Vaughn goes, I just loved the way he showed hatred for Grail and the desperation he used to get Grail down. He didn't care about the title. He cared about Grail. I really dug that and NWA-VA needs to do more personal storylines like that.
The show then ended up with a backstage segment with Grail taking out Big Tony in revenge for Big Tony's debut win over Grail. Interesting side note, more than half of the segments featuring Rick O'Brien have him eating food. Get a new hobby, man. This is was an all right segment, which I would like to see set up a handicap EOD-Big Tony match, but I felt it was a dumb way to end the show.
The show as a whole was pretty good. Not the best ever put out by NWA-VA, and certainly not the worst. Basic things need working like commentary and referees, but still, I was entertained, and that's what matters. Make sure to watch new episodes of NWA-VA Action Zone every Saturday on WrestlingNetwork.net. Well, that's it from this review. Until the next time you hear my incessant rambling, this is "Squared Circle Reviews" signing off and hoping you enjoy what you watch.
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